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As we've been covering Hebrews chapter 3 and 4, the author of Hebrews there quotes from

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Psalm 95 quite frequently.

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But we will look at the beginning few verses tonight.

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We won't talk too much about those last few verses simply because we've kind of talked

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about them in good detail in the last couple of Sunday sermons.

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But the first few verses of this psalm are beautiful.

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And so while Psalm 95 is fresh on our mind and while we are in the midst of Thanksgiving,

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which is part of what this psalm is about, it seems like a good time for us to look at

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it.

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So we will.

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It's a short little psalm.

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We'll look at all of it tonight.

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So let's pray and we'll get started.

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Father God, we come to you.

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We thank you for the goodness of your word.

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And I pray, dear Lord, that we just would find joy in you tonight, that you would be

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the rock of our life, that we would be thankful to you, dear Lord.

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We have a lot to be thankful for, that we would trust you above all else, that we would

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seek to be the sheep of your pasture and that we would just find comfort and security in

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your care.

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And I ask these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen.

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Psalm 95 verse 1.

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Come, let us shout joyfully to the Lord.

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Shout triumphantly to the rock of our salvation.

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Now, this is beautiful language that we see throughout the scriptures.

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The idea that God is the rock of our salvation, that he's a rock that we can stand on and

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rocks cannot be moved, as Jesus points out in the story in the Sermon on the Mount, where

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he talks about the guy who built this house on sand.

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And when the storm came and the waters raged, the sand washed away and the house went with

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it.

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But for those who build on a firm foundation, for those who are built on the rock, the storms

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that come and the rains that come will not blow it away.

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It doesn't mean that the storms won't come, but it means that what is built on the rock

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will be able to withstand the storm.

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And that's the same language we see here.

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Let us shout joyfully to the Lord.

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How often do we rejoice in the Lord and shout joyfully to the Lord and just kind of bask

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in the joy of the Lord and kind of take a break from the stresses of the world and remember,

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hey, God is pretty good.

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And even though life's sometimes stressful, there are many things we have to be thankful

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for and there are many things that we can rejoice in.

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And that's what he says here in the next verse, verse two.

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Let us enter his presence with thanksgiving.

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Let us shout triumphantly to him in song.

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Well, that's what we just did.

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We just sang out to the Lord.

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Perhaps sometimes we do that even as individuals, just at home or a quiet place.

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Perhaps we find ourselves just praising God or singing out to God.

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And what does it say here?

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Let us enter his presence with what?

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With thanksgiving.

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We certainly have much to be thankful for.

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We are reminded of that every time this time of year comes around with thanksgiving being

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tomorrow.

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Sometimes we need to stop for a minute and realize that we do have much to be thankful

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for.

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Sometimes we see the bad and the things that aren't going so well and we think man's life's

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tough and nothing's working out.

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And sometimes the bad things overshadow the good things.

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But perhaps if we take a second and kind of shift our focus, we may realize that we have

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a lot to be thankful for.

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Even on some of our worst days, we still got it pretty good.

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Even in some of our darkest times, God is still the light of our life.

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And so we need to remember to thank God.

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Perhaps we do.

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Hopefully we thank God every day.

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But maybe we don't.

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Sometimes perhaps that falls through the crack and we need to see verses like this to be

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reminded.

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We need to thank God for the things he does and not overlook the things that he does.

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Maybe there are little things that he does every day and we need to be thankful for those

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little things as well as the big things.

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Verse 3, for the Lord is a great God.

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Amen.

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He is a great God.

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A great King above all gods.

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He is a God who is undefeated.

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In the Old Testament we see, especially in that time in history, there were lots of people

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and they worshiped lots of different gods.

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They had a God for this and a God for that.

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And this God they would pray to and that God they would pray to.

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And, oh, we didn't get enough rain.

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We must have made our rain god mad or whatever it may be.

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There were all these different gods, but they were meaningless.

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They were non-existent other than in the minds of those who worship them.

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But when the God of Israel shown himself, when Yahweh made himself known to the nations,

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there was no question that the God that we come here and serve tonight is the God of

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all gods.

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He is the King of all kings.

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There are no other gods of this world that will stand up to him, our man-made gods.

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However real people may think they are, there is but one God and he is victorious in all

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things.

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He is undefeated and he will reign and rule forever.

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Verse four, the depths of the earth are in his hand and the mountain peaks are his.

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The sea is his.

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He made it.

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His hands formed the dry land.

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So here we see this language where it talks about God's hands and God is a spirit.

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He probably doesn't have hands, but there's this language that we see in scripture that

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we connect to, that we give these attributes of our human bodies, our hands or our feet

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or whatever it may be and we apply those things to God and here the author does that and says,

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hey, God is big.

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That's what he's saying here.

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God is big.

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You think about all the things that we see in this world.

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He gives us some examples.

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He said the depths of the earth.

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So from the deepest ocean and there are some deep oceans in this world, it goes down for

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miles and miles sometimes into the middle of the ocean.

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From the deepest spot you can get to the highest peak you can get.

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Think about some of the tallest mountains that there are in this world, Mount Everest

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and Kilimanjaro and all these mountains that are huge, that their peaks soar up into the

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clouds.

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They disappear into the sky.

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They are so tall and yet we serve a God who created those mountains.

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He created the highest peak that we see and the lowest depth that there is, places that

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we can not even get to, places that humans can barely get to and yet God created all

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of them.

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They are too big for us.

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They are too deep for us.

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They are too high for us but yet we serve a God who created these things and for us they

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are big but for God they are something that can fit in the palm of his hand.

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What does it say here?

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The seas, the sea is his.

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He made it.

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His hands formed the dry land.

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Think about that.

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Think about how big this planet is.

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Not just the depths of the ocean and the highest peaks but yet the whole world, the whole universe,

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every bit of it, God made, all of the water in the sea, God made, all of the dry land

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that there is, God made.

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Everything that there is, God has made and for God it is something that can merely fit

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in his hand.

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That reminds us and it shows us, the writer here is saying, look at how big God is.

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The God that we serve is so much bigger than everything else that we know.

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That's important for us to remember because we see this world, we think about how big

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and awesome it is, we see the problems of this world that we are up against and others

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are up against and we say, man, how could we ever overcome such big problems and big

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struggles in our life?

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Well, it's easy because the God we serve is far bigger than the problems that we are up

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against and it is that God who is with us as we go through those struggles.

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The same God who created this earth is the same God as with us as we walk through this

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earth and all the things that we may come up against.

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The author of Psalm 95 here, David, reminds us, hey, wait, look at how big God is.

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The things that are so big to us are nothing to God and so that's the one who we want to

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trust in is the one who made all things and can help us overcome them.

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Verse 6, come, let us worship and bow down.

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Let us kneel before the Lord our God.

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How often do we just take a moment and worship the Lord and do what he says here?

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Do we bow down before the Lord and kneel before the Lord?

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Perhaps we should do that more than we do.

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Maybe we do it every day.

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Maybe you kneel down and bow before the Lord every day, but maybe you don't.

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Maybe that's a good practice for Christians to remember to do, to spend some time and

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just kneel in reverence and prayer and thankfulness before the Lord.

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For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his care.

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Beautiful imagery, same imagery that we see in Psalm 23.

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The Lord is our shepherd.

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We shall not want or there is nothing that we lack.

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There's nothing that we need.

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He's with us.

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He lets us lie down in green pastures.

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He leads us beside the still waters.

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What beautiful imagery that God is our shepherd and that we are his sheep and David uses the

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same language here.

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For he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the sheep under his care.

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Now, we need to realize that if we are God's people and we trust God, then we are right

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where we need to be.

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We are in a good pasture.

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However, there's that temptation that the grass is always greener on the other side

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of the fence.

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We know God's word and perhaps we try to live by God's word and do the right thing, but

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those temptations come, right?

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We talked about that a couple of Sundays ago.

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Those temptations come and we say, well, things have been pretty good here in the presence

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of God, but well, man, the grass looks pretty green over there.

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If I could just go over there and do this or do that or get involved in this thing,

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but we find very quickly when we leave the Lord's pasture that that grass that looked

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good across the fence, once we get over there, we find out it is as dead and nasty and bad

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as any grass we've ever seen.

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So we need to realize that if we are in God's presence, if God is our shepherd and we are

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his sheep, then we need to stay in the pasture of security and abundance.

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That is only with the Lord.

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The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence.

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Perhaps we have all learned that in one way or another throughout our lives.

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And so that's where the praise and the thanksgiving and the worship of the Lord stops in that

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part of the Psalm.

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And then David ends the Psalm with a word of warning.

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So he says, look, God is good.

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God is great.

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God is big.

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You need to be thankful to God and rejoice in God and remember that he is your shepherd

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and you're the sheep of his pasture.

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But then he gives a warning.

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And he says that at the end of verse seven, he says, today, if you hear his voice, do

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not harden your hearts as it Miraba as on that day at Massa in the wilderness where

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your fathers tested me.

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They tried me though they had seen what I did for 40 years.

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I was disgusted with that generation.

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I said, they are a people whose hearts go astray.

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They do not know my ways.

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So I swore in my anger, they will not enter my rest.

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So David says here of all the greatness of God that we see in the first seven and three

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quarters verses, this is who God is.

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God is great.

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God is good.

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Stand in his presence and rejoice in him today.

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Today recognize who God is and live for God and trust in him and don't be like those people

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in the past.

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And then he gives a word of warning.

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Hey, God is good, but pay attention.

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We have to seek God.

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We have to follow God.

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We have to be faithful to God.

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We have to be obedient to God because there were some folks back in the day and they didn't

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listen to God.

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And God said, Hey, they're not going to enter into my rest.

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And that's what we've talked about as we've been going through the book of Hebrews, but

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we don't want to be those who fail to enter the rest and the peace of God.

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We want to be those in the first seven verses here that are like David, that recognize the

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greatness of God, that put faith in Jesus Christ and receive that salvation that comes

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through Christ alone and stand on the rock of our salvation that is Jesus and rejoice

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in a God who is bigger than anything that we are up against and never forget that we

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are the sheep of his pasture and he watches over us.

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Let's pray.

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Father God, we thank you for these good words and I pray that you would help us just to

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rejoice in them.

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God, you are good.

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And sometimes maybe your goodness is overshadowed by all the stuff we see in this world and

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the stuff we kind of have to put up with day in and day out.

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But let us be reminded of your greatness through Psalms like these, dear Lord, that we would

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rejoice in you tonight, that we would be those who praise you for all that you have given

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us, dear Lord.

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We have much to be thankful for and I pray as this season of thanksgiving is among us

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that we do not fail to realize it.

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We thank you most of all for Jesus Christ, for grace, for mercy, and that we have a reason

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to come here and worship tonight and that we have a hope for the future.

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In Jesus' name I pray it.

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Amen.